


Elegy

by Sunshine170



Series: In Absentia [4]
Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, S 3 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshine170/pseuds/Sunshine170





	Elegy

Her name was Olivia and she loved him.

That was always her story, the rest is just background.

He can think of the many things he could say, the many things he will invariably say when he stands up there tomorrow to give her eulogy, the account of her deeds, the greatness she had achieved and more of which she had been capable.  The million things that made her who she was… brave, beautiful, fragile, stubborn, and unyielding.

So broken but real…

But that’s merely detail, detail to that fundamental truth that made her story, of a woman who loved a man more than anything else, more than he certainly deserved.

He knows how egoistical it sounds, chauvinistic even to strip away her narrative like that, of a woman who literally radiated strength and courage and wore her complexity and her burdens better than most, boil it down to something that solely hinged on his presence or absence in her life.

But the fact remains, life as in death, she was governed by her love for him, ruled by her heart foremost, before anything else.

He’s not foolish to presume. He knows this to be true only because she told him.

Of all the victories that came their way, the knowledge that they had lived a life together was the one that meant the most to her, the most hard earned one too. The fact that they made it work

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t all fairytale.

But most days, when he woke up to her and then went home with her and they’d stand around their kitchen, talking about the day they had and mundane domestic concerns.

It sure felt like one, too perfect to be true and yet so astonishingly real.

The world that knew her a hero and a leader, brave to boot, an assuring if somewhat insufficient presence in a universe that was systematically going to pieces.  It’s a story that writes itself, clichéd, trite, inspiring to those who still seek inspiration,  of  a martyr and a warrior, a brave soul fallen to a cause that was already lost when he stepped into a machine fifteen years ago.

 And who better to tell it than him.

He’s a good story teller. He always has been, narratives of travels and encounters that he can recant with great fervor.  He would tell Olivia stories of his life in bed, when under the covers they forgot for a while and pretended everything outside was not terribly wrong, road trips and odd jobs, bar fights and drunken escapades with strange and beautiful women, cons that went well and those that ended badly, usually with him in a hospital. He loved making her laugh, amusing her, shocking her even, allowing her windows into his past, offering her some respite from their deteriorating present.

He’s a good story teller, and when the time comes tomorrow, he will live up to the claim. He will play the part of the grieving widower with perfect grace and aplomb. He will give the people what they came for, a story to seek inspiration in an already hopeless world, a hero to believe in.

It will be moving, heartfelt and later people will come up to him to shake his hand and tell him what a beautiful eulogy he gave, tell him how sorry they are for his loss.

 And they’ll all walk away never knowing her real story. 

There was an Olivia that only he knew, whose story was for him to keep and treasure, folded away inside his heart.  Of how, when they were newlyweds, she made him carry her over the threshold to their apartment which was two floors up, refusing to let them take the elevator, giggling uncharacteristically as she distracted him with languid kisses, causing them to bump into corners one too many times.  Who he’d sometimes pull into the janitor’s closet to sneak a kiss or two at work, or take her hand under the table at staff meetings only to have her glare at him with a dangerous if amused look.

She never did free her hand though.

The world will never know, the Olivia that he held and comforted at nights when her body shook and trembled with disappointment at having failed to stop whatever latest calamity had plagued their world, the one who tried so very hard to quell the pain of living with the choice she’d made, who struggled with a longing that tore at her soul when she looked at the faces of happy children and tried not to feel the incompleteness of their own family.

The one who leaned into him on quite afternoons when they sat on the couch together, while he read to her aloud from books she liked, or when they talked about everything anf nothing.

Those were the things about Olivia that counted the most, that she wanted most. Peace, a little bit of happiness, an attempt at normal, things he could never tell this world.

_“You’ve grown old.” She’d whispered to him that night, the night before she died, hands carding through his hair, observing the strands of grey that appeared more prominently around the edges of his hairline than they did  a few years ago,  regarding him with a careful expression, as if seeing for the first time the mark the passing years had left on him._

_“We both have.” He’d said, rubbing her nose with his in an Eskimo kiss, as he simply pulled her closer,  bodies twisted in comfortable linen sheets, worn thin over years of use and washing, the weight of her body against his so familiar to him that he’d forgotten almost what it was like to not share a bed with her._

_“Isn’t it the best?”   He’d grinned, happy and a little drunk from the two glasses of wine they’d had with dinner._

_She’d chuckled in amusement, eyes tired, patient, wiser than before, a content smile playing on her lips._

_“It really is, isn’t it?”_

Her name was Olivia and she loved him.

That was always her story; the rest is for the world. 


End file.
